


Parallel

by randomscientist



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon-Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2018-11-29 15:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11443539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomscientist/pseuds/randomscientist
Summary: -The framed print of the Periodic Table of Elements is missing from his bedroom wall.-They’re out of milk again, even though there was a fairly decent amount left last he checked, as he was making tea the previous afternoon.-And his flatmate’s military haircut appears at least a full centimetre longer than its state just a day prior.In hindsight, those oddities Sherlock has noticed this morning, observations he couldn’t immediately formulate a deduction to adequately explain, should’ve been sufficient clues.





	1. Titration

The framed print of the Periodic Table of Elements is missing from his bedroom wall. They’re out of milk again, even though there was a fairly decent amount left last he checked, as he was making tea the previous afternoon. And his flatmate’s military haircut appears at least a full centimetre longer than its state just a day prior.

In hindsight, those oddities Sherlock has noticed this morning, observations he couldn’t immediately formulate a deduction to adequately explain, should’ve been sufficient clues.

The critical – and most alarming – sign that it most certainly _isn’t_ just another day of his life at his (and his blogger’s) 221B, however, arrives in the form of a plain envelope. Addressed to him. Well, to ‘Mr S. Holmes’.

Enclosed is a ticket to a symphony concert (over in the States, in NYC), an introductory flyer (containing a photograph of the _very_ fresh-faced orchestra, featuring bright, innocent eyes and a few missing-tooth grins), and an unsigned note, penned in elegant script: “Don’t be late.”

The detective’s gaze fixes upon somewhere specific on the photograph, and is for a long moment incapable of moving away. Amongst the performers sits a dark-haired, neatly dressed boy in the front row. A child whose confident, lopsided smile reminds him so much of-

He shakes his head, but fails to clear his mind of painful memories threatening to surface, memories that he’d wished to leave behind amidst the rolling plains and sweltering heat in that Pakistani city and never have to revisit.

He’d realised, mere days after, that a significant part of him did desperately hope to win her, yet despite the heart’s insistent whisper, their respective pride decisively yielded dispute instead of ‘dinner’.

He absolutely despises how, years of silence later, three pieces of paper are all it takes to make something in him once again flutter.

There is no doubt that the invitation is from The Woman. Nor that the charming boy, the child that is sure to shine as the star of the performance, is none other than her own. What he doesn’t understand, is the reason behind such a move. Move? He’d thought their game was long concluded, and he certainly _wasn’t_ the winner.

What's she hoping to achieve now, taunting him with the _family_ she's clearly succeeded in building? Tearing at old wounds that haven’t healed and probably never will, as though there hadn’t been enough hurt that they each caused the other?

Nothing, nothing makes sense.

..But there _is_ a way to rectify that, he supposes, hands still steepled beneath his chin.

He reaches for the desk beside him and flips his laptop open. A few clicks and keyboard taps later, the British Airways booking page appears on the screen.

* * *

 

It’s a nice, blue-skied morning, after a night of precipitation and thunder. Sherlock Holmes is one swift motion away from pulling his bedroom door open when he pauses, his attention suddenly caught by something to his left.

A Periodic Table print, on the wall. The one that should currently be resident in NYC, not here in London. The same one that he’d gently taken off himself and placed into a poster tube, to accompany a small boy on the flight back to his American home, a couple of years ago, at the youngster’s request.

_“No! It won’t be the same. I don’t want a new one, Dad, I want this. Yours.”_

Nero had taken a keen interest in the sciences, even back then, when he still liked to be carried and swung around. He’d ask to be lifted up in front of the large framed print, hug his father’s neck tight, and tilt his head to study the columns with concentration. He’d point towards individual elements, and demand to hear cool stories of their discoveries, to learn their unique properties, to know everything there is to know about these fascinating constituents that make up the world..

A slight curve stretches its way across the detective’s lips at the thought of his son. A far-too-telling smile. One that he has to remember to erase from his face before entering the living room to greet John. One to which no passing observer would’ve spared a second glance before assigning the simple, ordinary label of ‘fondness and pride’.

But proud he is, indeed. In curiosity and cleverness, in exploration and mischief, the plantlet cheekily flourishes, with much more liberty than he ought to have been allowed. Yet it isn’t as if either parent has any real power to constrain his access to what latest objectives he’s chosen to set his determined young mind upon – both Sherlock and Irene’s well-honed people-manipulating craft has proved unconditionally susceptible to what they see in those big, blue eyes. Nor do they truly intend to deny the boy at all.

Directing his thoughts back to the present, Sherlock examines the framed print before him – is this yet another coded message from Irene or Nero? Has it been delivered and discreetly put up within the time frame of a few hours, whilst he was asleep? They couldn’t have been visiting Baker Street themselves – he would’ve _observed_. And the boy must’ve been busy with rehearsals recently, with his first big concert this coming weekend.

Speaking of which, he expects to pay them a visit very soon.


	2. Reaction

Sherlock isn’t certain what he should be expecting. He never does when it comes to her – that much isn’t new, but the unauthorised emotions now associated with such uncertainty  _are_. Trepidation, wants, and not a small amount of what he refuses to identify as jealousy, all joining the remorse that has probably never really left him to begin with.

Whilst he most definitely doesn’t feel ready to address their thorny past with her (To, what, ‘apologise and reconcile’? How trite. And what would they say even if they were the type to dwell on such things? “I’m sorry I was ruthless, unyielding, and accusatory – although might I add that, so were you. Contrary to appearances it was not my intention to be hell-bent on hurting you until our very last hour. I was merely trying to protect myself. If we weren’t each so stubbornly ourselves, perhaps we might’ve– we might’ve been  _ordinary together_.”?), he also cannot pretend that what had happened in Karachi could ever be put behind and faded by time.

..Oh but apparently  _she_  can.

The Woman looks stunning in her backless dress. Ever carrying that air of sophistication and enigma, and ever with the power to take his words and breath away, as if no time has passed at all since the moment he first set eyes on her in Belgravia, since when everything began.

Appearing completely at ease, her greeting to him is imbued with what is unmistakably a hint of playful flirtation, as though it hadn’t been years since last they saw each other, as though whatever it was between them didn’t end with spiteful words as vehement farewell.

As though the orchestra concert later this evening was part of some well-established routine, and they would later be heading off to dinner for a proper chat and more.

If this is yet another intricate ploy of hers where he is either the target or – for a second time – made an expendable pawn, it is even crueller than Bond Air. One lonely, naïve man, unable to move on. And a Woman clever enough to break his heart just like she had once before.

Except, except.. It is then that a tiny, tailcoat-clad figure, standing a few metres away amongst his equally formally dressed peers, turns his head towards their direction, and the scampering footsteps that follow lead the boy not to an embrace with his mother, but to a purposefully aimed thump into Sherlock himself, a pair of small arms immediately wrapping around his legs.

Her son, the boy, whose little face instantly lit up upon spotting Sherlock, as if being treated to a wondrous sight of snow on Christmas morning, the boy knows him, likes him, has been transparently close with him. This small boy with dark curving hair and gold-blue iris calls him–

But the mere concept is absurd. The child  _can’t_  be  _his_. He never– They hadn’t– It would be biologically impossible that–

He feels The Woman’s soft, delicate hand gently pressed to the back of his. He’s been fighting to modulate his expression, careful to not let show the thundering turmoil and paralysing disorientation underneath. She must have detected any tenseness in his mask and seen right through it regardless.

She is searching his eyes for something, the unfamiliar warmth in her scrutiny making him feel uncharacteristically exposed.

“Sherlock–” her voice barely rises above a whisper, “What happened?”

* * *

 

They’ve moved neighbourhoods again, and it has taken Sherlock 30% longer than his estimated time to locate Irene’s residence.

He doesn’t wait for the door to fully open before stepping forward. His arms lead, not requiring conscious instruction to find where they ache to belong, immediately tightening around waist and hips. He bends, lips seeking comfort in an ardent pressing to the softness of their complementary pair. She will doubtless be (breathily) teasing him for such juvenile eagerness when their mouths have to part for air, but he currently cannot at all bring himself to care – it’s been four months and four months too long. For an entrancing moment, his senses register only her. Touch, taste, and scent (as sight is presently difficult, with his eyes closed, and she has yet to let out an acknowledging sound).

But then the warmth withdraws from his hold; the completeness, no longer. His gaze finally locks onto hers, and what he observes in that mesmerising blue, he does not recognise. Cheeks flushed and eyes wide, she regards him as he imagines she might an unfamiliar man, an uninvited guest. Despite their standing barely a foot apart, never – in all the years that he has had the fortune of knowing her – has the woman before him felt more  _distant_. For once, the consulting detective does not understand.

He briefly considers her new flat then. Effortlessly luxurious, and in pristine condition.

There is no potted  _Phalaenopsis_ , no tiny shoes or coat; no scattered books, meticulously arranged petri dishes, nor the odd component of some deconstructed device. Regardless of its classy décor the place appears to him as empty as his chest has suddenly become, devoid of any trace of the liveliness and joy he is desperately attempting to discern:

There is no sign of his little man.

His eyes return to her, and it is as though his most prided deductive skills have been far too slow to catch up and are only now startled awake by a distressing chill.

The mystery of the relocated Periodic Table print. The few other misplaced items in his flat on Baker Street. Her demeanour and appearance (which over the years he has gradually acquired an ability to read with some  _moderate_  degree of accuracy), deviating from what might be reasonably expected (within error) by extrapolation from his mental notes at their last reunion. All the unaccountable observations that his mind has pushed aside and resisted from processing during the past week, flashing before his eyes in rapid succession, seemingly assembling to construct a logical unity of their own.

Sherlock Holmes is an experimental scientist by training. Philosophical disciplines, with their notions and theories lacking in practical application, are not a subject of his concern. Yet he is abruptly struck with the bleak panic of having utterly lost his sense of reality, that he may finally be facing a truth cold and cruel, after having been pathetically immersed in a better story he had told himself, that his most dearly treasured moments were nothing but an elaborate, wishful fantasy.

He gives his dizzying head a slight shake, forcing himself to resume breathing. No. Those long years of memories, bright or dark (or dull and overcast); the interwoven joy and bitterness, contentment and pain; Irene and Nero, his Woman and boy, his  _world_  – he cannot have imagined all that. Above anything, Sherlock Holmes does trust his mind, trust his well-organised store of information and experience. He has to and he will. And hope is an irrational and fickle thing but he will presently hold on, and think. ..So how?

More than once he has matter-of-factly stated to others, that when one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Never has he expected to be presented with a case where, eliminating the impossible leaves no possibility remaining.

His characteristic approach operates under the implicit assumption that the truth must lie within a predefined set of the  ** _plausible_**. But what happens when it becomes increasingly clear that accumulating evidence continues to support some outlier previously perceived as  ** _preposterously impossible_**? A notion so radically contrary to his rational view of the physical universe, irreconcilable with the fundamental framework of well-established principles, as to never would have qualified as subject to his method of systematic elimination to begin with. Yet an explanation so temptingly elegant, heralding the promise of a natural cascade towards a conclusion  ** _glaringly obvious_** , if one would only simply acquiesce to the premise.

Still, he needs more data. Wherever this is, whichever parallel dimensions he has somehow been transported into, he needs to sketch out a chart describing this alternative reality for reference, before he can address the more challenging problem, work out a way back - and he  _needs_  to be back.

He briefly scans through the evidence he has collected thus far, in search of the most critical points. Irene’s old Vertu is still in the drawer at 221B, yet that ‘souvenir’ from when they both nearly met their demise in Montenegro isn’t.

“What do you remember about Karachi?” He breaks the charged, waiting silence between them.

Right, so that was not an acceptable way to broach the subject, he notes, rubbing his burning cheek.

“Irene, I–” No, apparently even the way he addresses her, this woman that is decidedly not  _her_ , is out of the ordinary here, if her narrowed, gauging eyes are to be relied upon.

“ _Miss Wolfe_ ,” He doesn’t recall the last time he has felt so out of his depth, if ever, “My apologies for– Please, may I come in? It’s.. rather an urgent situation, and something of a long story.”

Her expression remains unreadable as she crosses her arms and turns to stride into her flat, her graceful form so much like  _hers_. He follows, closing the door behind him.

“You have half an hour to explain yourself.” States a cool, crisp voice. He tries not to be distracted by how she sounds like  _her_  too.


	3. Coordination

He managed to make it through the concert and to the flat with some semblance of his composure intact. If her son also noticed something unusual about the man he calls ‘Dad’, playing First Violin in the orchestra seemed to suffice as distraction. And now, with the boy soundly tucked up in bed (not without resistance), Sherlock and the woman who he’d mistaken as The Woman are seated across from each other – on separate sofas, a polite distance away.

Like the subconscious gap between strangers.

Remarkable how capricious human association can be. Ironic, too, given how – essentially instantly – they’d harmonised as opponents at that very first meeting when they  _had_  been strangers, in what feels like lifetimes ago.

He has yet to fully acclimatise to his current situation, to the single, prevailing interpretation thereof. Multiple, alternative versions of the same people, coexisting in non-intersecting realities. Having each diverged from a point along the shared axis of time. Branch points – however many, and Karachi was theirs.

“He must be looking for..Nero and I.” Her voice was level but taut, interrupting his own mulling.

There is no question to whom she was referring.

He hadn’t considered the fate of the  _other_  Sherlock Holmes – what a strange thought. A man who has his body, and shares his past, who bears his identity in this strikingly familiar world where he doesn’t belong.

With his spinning mind still in the process of examining the overload of information in incredulity, formulating and dismissing hypotheses, the other man’s well-being is frankly rather towards the bottom of his concerns.

..But perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised him, that it sits at the very top of hers.

Is that other version of him currently at the opposite end of their paired reality switch? Or has Sherlock’s presence here just erased and overwritten a counterpart who is to exist nevermore? There is no way to ascertain. Yet the woman before him sounded positive, that the Sherlock she had been expecting this evening is out there somewhere, and though trapped, still alive, as though she firmly prohibits any thoughts from straying to the alternative.

Further, there appears to be not a shadow of doubt in her mind that, her Sherlock, the man who was once  _him_ , would be prepared to move heaven and earth to find a way back to her, to them – mother and son. Reflecting on his own..past, he cannot help but feel a sense of..something, at this. It’s unpleasant, and disconcerting, a heaviness weighing on his lungs.

Something else occurs to him then. What if the other Sherlock finds  _her_? The Woman that  _he_  had lost, all those years ago..

“What is he like?” he begins, “Your..” He trails off, her  _what_ , he isn’t sure how to continue, immediately wishing he hadn’t somehow felt the need to clarify – it should be obvious enough to them both that he isn’t referring to her son.

If he were anyone other than Sherlock Holmes, he would’ve most likely missed the slight widening of her eyes, the brief flash of alarm on her face, as though whichever word he struggles to say would be equally foreign and frightful to them both.

“Most insufferable.” she doesn’t wait for him to complete that sentence before swiftly replying, a flicker of a smile at her lips.

Yet the barely perceptible softening of her expression has told him more than any verbal descriptor could. And that unpleasant, unsettling sensation is diffusing through him once again.  

Suddenly over and above all the confusion and scattered thoughts, a bold determination prevails.

He has to return, to the reality he’d paved himself, to..resolve, what he has been too cowardly of a man to confront.

If only the universe would allow him another chance.

* * *

 

“You still haven’t given me any reason to believe you.” She points out, leaning forward just slightly. An arch of eyebrow –  _Convince me, Mr Holmes. Your demeanour suggests against drug-induced hallucination, and the look in your eyes, it is not that of a lying man, but give me, give me one piece of evidence for your claim, an unequivocal sign that you are a different man from the one I know as Sherlock Holmes._

And he could. He could. He could spend hours, days, listing what he knows to be true, unalterable by any divergence that may have arisen after their fateful crossing of paths – there are facts that he had learnt of not by deduction, information that no dossier in the world would document. Things as momentous as decisions that defined who Irene Adler was to become; those trifling, too, like the song she sang as a child only when herself was the sole audience around, the sight of the first daffodils before March that just might still earn her smile, or the solace she took in the sound of pelting rain against window panes, quietening everything else.

..Things that the woman before him has not told a single soul.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t, because all of those..are pieces of  _her_ , of  _Irene_. Some touched upon on languorous mornings in their short holidays, as her head rested on his shoulder and his arm was gently around her, each baring more of their never-idle minds than what they normally would have allowed; some were inconsequentially referred to, because that was where the conversation happened to lead; most, he’d simply observed because she no longer felt it necessary to hide them from him.

He had discovered them, little by little, carefully filling up a unit of glass-doored shelves, purpose-built in his Mind Palace to keep them safe. A part of him – to the dismay of the more  _rational_  part – would even insist that they’re as much  _theirs_  as hers, and he won’t share that. Not with a different Irene that isn’t his. Not as a man she barely knows. Not just so as to gain her trust.

“I am not asking you to.” he tells her instead, “I have explained the circumstances of my perceived discourteous behaviour and hope to be forgiven. I did initially intend to request assistance in rectifying the problem at its fundamental level, although – no disrespect – from what I have gathered from our conversation in the past half an hour, it is unlikely that much further insight can be gleaned from my presence here.”

Blue gaze studies him for moments more, but the woman makes no attempt to respond.

“If there are no further questions, I shall leave you to carry on with your..” a wave of his hand gesturing towards nowhere in particular, “life.” He finishes, beginning to stand.

“Wait,” she says finally, “This..transport to a reality that is not your own, you said this wasn’t a conscious decision, that you haven’t experienced it before.. Tell me – how do you plan to get back?”

And that was precisely his problem.

By definition, parallel realities should – in theory – never intersect. Except now they clearly  _have_ , with (at least two versions of) him being the intersection point. There must’ve been a local distortion. A region of instability, perhaps caused by a pressure or electrical imbalance during the overnight thunderstorm and lightning earlier that week. But what of this region now – can it be expected to revert to its original state, by natural fluctuation alone? And if the two realities were to continue on being  _parallel_ , does that necessitate a second intersection, to ensure their equidistance thereafter?

Because if a natural reversion – within a reasonably short time span as measured in earthly days – cannot be relied upon to follow the initial switch, between his own consciousness and that of the other Sherlock Holmes, if the current state of these realities is more permanent rather than temporary.. Then trying to warp the dimensions of space-time through manual, humanly means would be.. well it's certainly not above sounding like nothing beyond a science-fiction cliché.

It’s almost comparable to the phase problem in crystallography, muses the MChem graduate in Sherlock. Him now being just like a diffraction spot in a transformed coordinate system (h, k, l), seeking his original position in real space (x, y, z), the only reality he would accept.

The question remains:  _how_?

 _I don’t know._  He refuses to admit, looking away from her and at nowhere specific in her immaculate, lifeless flat, his thoughts far away. He wonders what  _Irene_  is doing at this very moment in hers. He can almost hear the sound of a tireless small boy pattering about.

He wonders if they miss him this much too.

“All right.” Comes a voice not as cold as it had been less than an hour prior, and thus sounding even more like  _hers_ ; something in his chest longs to resonate at its frequency. She’s offering an answer to..something – what did he ask of her again?

“I’m..sorry?”

“You mentioned you might benefit from a bit of help, and later decided otherwise – only that’s not quite true is it? Because you are clearly clueless,” a hint of a smirk gracing her features, “All right. We’ll..collaborate. Figure out a solution. Until then, ..you have my permission to stay here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #bitterness is a paralytic [something else] is a much more powerful motivator  
> #to be quite fair to the first sherlock though he does have reason to be upset  
> #his irene's currently taking pity in another man #even inviting him to stay at her flat  
> #oh and not to mention said man tried to kiss her - *had* kissed her - too  
> #wonder how sherlock would feel about that (but shh let's not add fuel to fire)


End file.
